Life's Great Mysteries - Wild carrots are not orange, so why are domestic carrots orange?

Wild carrots grow in abundance around here (in Missouri). The plant is also called Queen Anne’s lace, so perhaps you’ve heard of it or seen it along roadsides or in fields. When you pull up a wild carrot, the root (or carrot) is white or pale yellow.

Let’s go back in time to examine this. Almost 5,000 years ago, people of the Persian Plateau area (today this area is Iran, Afghanistan, and parts of Pakistan west of the Indus River) first started domesticating the wild carrot, and the roots changed from white and pale yellow to purple and brighter yellow. Domesticated carrots then gradually spread to other areas. It wasn’t until the 1500s when, in the Netherlands, orange carrots appeared and became popular. The first carrots with an orange hue were, of course, a result of one or more random mutations. People decided they liked the orange color, and they bred carrots selectively for even brighter orange colors.

During the 1500s, the Dutch were leaders in agriculture in the area, and the orange carrots happened to grow well in the Dutch soil and climates, better than the purple and yellow varieties. Dutch merchants then sold these robust orange carrots across Europe, and orange carrots became the favorite and the norm.

Okay, this is where folklore begins. Sometime later, the Netherlands selected orange as their official national color, which was derived from the House of Orange-Nassau (also known as the House of Orange), which played a central role in the government of the Netherlands. The name comes from the principality of Orange, a Dutch territory that used to be situated in the south of France.

Well, the Dutch began using orange carrots to promote the nation’s national color. And at some point, a folktale arose, which stated that Dutch farmers intentionally began selectively breeding carrots to be orange in honor of William, Prince of Orange. William was a leader during the Dutch Revolt, which began in 1566 and eventually led to the Dutch Republic.

Is the story true? Nope, probably not. Here’s a quote from John Stolarczyk, curator of the World Carrot Museum (seriously). “There is no documentary evidence that the Dutch invented orange carrots to honor their royal family.”

Now you know the story of orange carrots.

Below are wild carrots (Queen Anne's lace) and domesticated orange carrots.